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The thriving junior game.


thebairns57

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Was only a short time ago the junior game was thriving was it perfect no but compared to what we have now it seems the junior game wasn't in such a bad state after all certainly the silent pro junior men you don't hear from on here will agree with that. 

I've read more than a dozen messages of clubs fans questioning now what. 

Don't blame them for wishing things were just as they were only three or four years ago. 

 

Edited by thebairns57
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1 hour ago, thebairns57 said:

Was only a short time ago the junior game was thriving was it perfect no but compared to what we have now it seems the junior game wasn't in such a bad state after all certainly the silent pro junior men you don't hear from on here will agree with that. 

I've read more than a dozen messages of clubs fans questioning now what. 

Don't blame them for wishing things were just as they were only three or four years ago. 

 

That was a daring post considering the amount of people on here who take great delight in shooting down any views with the word "Juniors" in it.

You're right though, there is still a very large (but non vocal) amount of fans and club officials who feel as if they've been dragged screaming and kicking into this new league and would probably have preferred to stay where they were.

I was surprised that there wasn't an alternative offer put to the clubs by the WRJFA to continue with some form of League set up for those clubs as the infrastructure and Management set up was still there, but probably not galvanised enough to get themselves organised.

The pyramid was, and is a great achievement for those clubs who wanted to be part of it but there could have been a 2nd choice for those who didn't. 

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The senior game is dying it's on life support. All the relatives are fighting around the bed as it slowly fades. 

People always needed an alternative to senior football whether it be for one game a season two ten twenty . That's why it's always been so popular. 

Instead of being in the bed nearby in a stable condition it's jumped into bed with critically ill patient and is now wondering rather quickly what the hell have we got involved in they to are now wrapped up in this. 

This pandemic in particular  has set the pyramid and senior football opinions and self preservation attitude  back 10 years just as things were changing.

Ironically enough once this pandemic is over junior football would have been one of the few areas to benefit from people weary of the big crowds instead plundering for local football smaller crowds trophies and leagues knowing it was separate from the mess that the seniors is in. 

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For God's sake it's the same teams in the same toons wi the same fans.  It's fitba.  You dinnae play a different game just cos you've got junior in the name.  There is NO distinction except that in people's heads.  What difference does it make  if Bathgate play Whitburn in what remains of  the east Juniors or if they play in the East of Scotland league?  The "glory days" would have been the same or better if the clubs had been in a proper pyramid structure from the start.  Auchinleck playing Ayr in the SPFL is surely better than Auchinleck v Darvel in the Ayrshire league.

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...or maybe we can all try to learn to respect different perspectives? I suspect that a year or two down the road most people are going to wonder what all the fuss was about because going to a WoS game will be much the same experience as a west region one was, but time will tell. Will be interesting to see what happens with the conferences and how many clubs can use it to radically change their fortunes like Crossgates Primrose did in the east.

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3 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

...or maybe we can all try to learn to respect different perspectives? I suspect that a year or two down the road most people are going to wonder what all the fuss was about because going to a WoS game will be much the same experience as a west region one was, but time will tell. Will be interesting to see what happens with the conferences and how many clubs can use it to radically change their fortunes like Crossgates Primrose did in the east.

Thank you sir for the reasonable reply .

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2 hours ago, santheman said:

That was a daring post considering the amount of people on here who take great delight in shooting down any views with the word "Juniors" in it.

You're right though, there is still a very large (but non vocal) amount of fans and club officials who feel as if they've been dragged screaming and kicking into this new league and would probably have preferred to stay where they were.

I was surprised that there wasn't an alternative offer put to the clubs by the WRJFA to continue with some form of League set up for those clubs as the infrastructure and Management set up was still there, but probably not galvanised enough to get themselves organised.

The pyramid was, and is a great achievement for those clubs who wanted to be part of it but there could have been a 2nd choice for those who didn't. 

It would definitely have been better had there been some sort of an alternative still in place for those clubs adamant on remaining with the status quo as has happened in West Lothian. You have to ask why something wasn't facilitated for those clubs and whose  job it would have been to keep something along those lines going...all that's certain is that responsibility for providing the alternative wasn't down to either the clubs who wanted to leave or the new league they were joining.

In terms of club officials and fans who were against change, I'm sure a similar discussion was held at every club as to whether moving was a good idea or not. That was the time for club officials against it to make the point and argue the toss , not now once the stable door is open and the horse has well and truly bolted.

As for fans, at this level of football a club official is in most cases a fan with a tie...anyone that feels that strongly about the direction their club is heading in should get involved with them rather than stand on the sidelines - most clubs will be only too glad to dish out another tie to someone who feels they have a personal stake in the future of the club.

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None of the teams who've jumped ship have applied to go back yet...

A genuine question to the original poster - just what is it about being "our Juniors" that will be lost if a Junior club moves to the EoS League?  What parts of going to games  and supporting the team will be different?  How does beating Whitburn to win the EoS League differ from beating them to win the east juniors super league south? At which point in the trip from Bathgate to Whitburn do you expect fans will say "oh bugger, lets not bother going to this "senior" match - a match between the same sets of players on the same pitch can't possibly be as good If the word Juniors isn't involved."

 

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14 minutes ago, Andy groundhopper said:

Suppose the leap from junior to senior could be summed up by one question for clubs and fans 'where do you want to be in 5 years ?'  if youre in the Lowland and thriving, then the pyramid is great, but I guess most clubs will be almost where they are now,just in a different league set up.

Do Stenhousemuir realistically want to play in the same league as Rangers? Do Ardeer realistically see themselves in the same division as Talbot?

Competitive sport is about heirarchy. The false splitting up of regional part-time teams is something undone by all of this and that IMO is something to celebrate.

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29 minutes ago, mcruic said:

None of the teams who've jumped ship have applied to go back yet...

A genuine question to the original poster - just what is it about being "our Juniors" that will be lost if a Junior club moves to the EoS League?  What parts of going to games  and supporting the team will be different?  How does beating Whitburn to win the EoS League differ from beating them to win the east juniors super league south? At which point in the trip from Bathgate to Whitburn do you expect fans will say "oh bugger, lets not bother going to this "senior" match - a match between the same sets of players on the same pitch can't possibly be as good If the word Juniors isn't involved."

 

Why do people still shop in the Co-op when there’s a Tesco Superstore down the road.

Why do people still go to a caravan when you can book into a 4 star hotel for the same price.

Why do some people still refuse to use a mobile phone and keep their landline 

It’s what people of a certain generation have been used to and don’t want or like change even if it’s for the better but it shouldn’t make them the object of ridicule by some on here.

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Mate you can't explain anything to the majority on here who are the football manager spreadsheet types and the nosy football geeks from higher up senior ladder. 

I'm a supporter of all levels of football and appreciate every level is different and has it own characteristics. I enjoy it all.

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I've only ever been to junior games (and amateur games)  and I like spreadsheets.  You can't generalise...

The analogy of co-op/Tesco is not valid.  A better analogy would be people refusing to go to Tesco because they preferred it when it was called Willie Low's.  It's just a label.  It's really not a different thing!

Also, every level has its own characteristics - this is true in the pyramid also.  It's nothing to do with junior senior amateur labels. The characteristics are the players (and how good or bad they are), the stadium/pitch and how it affects the football being played, the weather, the fans.  None of these things is changed by affixing an arbitrary label like "junior" to it.

Edited by mcruic
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25 minutes ago, thebairns57 said:

Mate you can't explain anything to the majority on here who are the football manager spreadsheet types and the nosy football geeks from higher up senior ladder. 

I'm a supporter of all levels of football and appreciate every level is different and has it own characteristics. I enjoy it all.

Shut up you sanctimonious welt. 

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1 hour ago, Andy groundhopper said:

Suppose the leap from junior to senior could be summed up by one question for clubs and fans 'where do you want to be in 5 years ?'  if youre in the Lowland and thriving, then the pyramid is great, but I guess most clubs will be almost where they are now,just in a different league set up.

The whole point of the pyramid is that clubs can find their level. For plenty of clubs that will be tier 7 and lower in the west, which is absolutely fine. For those clubs nothing much will change (after an initial transitional season), but there is the opportunity to move up the pyramid for clubs that want/can.

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1 hour ago, santheman said:

 

Why do some people still refuse to use a mobile phone and keep their landline 

Because they don't like their wives calling them when they are oot on the peeve? 

As you said - people of a certain generation.  I'm not ridiculing, I asked valid questions which were met with invalid questions in return.  There's no logic behind why people prefer what they are used to, even if it's worse.  But it certainly deserves to be questioned when the future of football clubs does not rest in their hands...

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To me the root of the problem is that in the West the Juniors ARE the non-league. So people's opinions are polarised between the "couthy, community-friendly, welcoming" Juniors and the heartless capitalist sods that are the Seniors.


In the East it's always been different. They've always existed in parallel. So I've been able to walk from my house to see either Bonnyrigg ( Junior) or Whitehill ( surrounded by Juniors). The clubs play regular friendlies against each other, or Nitten or Penicuik or Musselburgh, all the time. Or they use half a 3G pitch each at training followed by a bounce game. Yet they could never meet in a competition. 
 

The people running the clubs are the same as people who run any club. I did it for a few years, and amazingly the people running the game in the East aren't middle-class public school types who really prefer rugby ( © I. Goudie).

Players switch 'grades' regularly in transfers between the clubs.. Until recently, people in Midlothian would flock to Rosewell to see a Scottish Cup game when Whitehill were a force. And flock to Bonnyrigg in the Junior Cup to see Pollok or Talbot or Kilwinning.

Apparently there are c50000 users on this forum. The vast, vast majority will be 'senior' posters of whom an insignificant minority will be hostile to the 'grade' or just looking to wind up paranoid grade diehards (who need to grow a thicker skin). Even at that, most so-called 'anti-junior' people  have only been (justifiably) critical of the hierarchy and not the clubs. It's only a game of fitba guys.

Edited by The Mantis
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Unfortunately, the truth in a nutshell is that there always will be those resistant to any form of change...even when the old Ayrshire and Central divisions of the West were amalgamated a few years back there were dark mutterings from some that it would "pit teams oot the game" Which it obviously didn't - all that happened was some lower division clubs playing other lower division clubs  that weren't the same ones they'd faced for years.

There seems to be some effort to posit the existence of a silent majority of fans and club officials who are unhappy with the way things have developed, but I suspect that's more a minority projecting their own feelings...I've said on here before that maybe five or ten years ago there would have been more opposition at my club to moving as there were some old-stagers still involved at that point who saw any change to the status quo as a personal affront.

I reckon most who support teams though support the club regardless of what the league they find themselves in is called. You can't attempt to preserve 60-odd clubs in aspic just because the way things were back in the day was how you liked it better.

There are some who seem to have invested a lot of emotional capital in the "grade" thing, but as ever when asked to define what makes the Juniors distinct from other levels of football, there's never a coherent answer forthcoming.

I'll ask it again though without any real expectation of an answer...what exactly makes Junior football different from football in all its other manifestations in your mind?

 

 

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5 minutes ago, gogsy said:

A few posters that have  joined p & b recently  have started posting how great junior football is/was. :whistle

At least some of them are new accounts. The other day in the EOS forum there was somone that had their account since something like 2009 and only decided to post something to play devil's advocate over the HL/LL boundary line.

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